The prophet Ezekiel shares this picture of what’s coming in the renovated world that awaits us:
Fruit trees of all kinds will grow along both sides of the river. The leaves of these trees will never turn brown and fall, and there will always be fruit on their branches. There will be a new crop every month, for they are watered by the river flowing from the Temple. The fruit will be for food and the leaves for healing. (Ezekiel 47:12)
The apostle John reveals a parallel picture of the New Earth:
Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It flowed down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. (Revelation 22:1-2, NLT)
The tree of life in Eden will become a great forest of life on the New Earth, growing on both sides of the river and producing an abundance of delicious fruit that will provide God’s people continuous health (Revelation 22:1-2). What does this mean? That the New Jerusalem will be Eden magnified and expanded, but with far more variety not only in the fruit it bears, but also in untold other ways. (Assuming that New Earth animals will eat what New Earth people do, presumably they will experience the same benefits, whatever those are.)
If Eden was a rural utopia, the New Jerusalem, with its great waters and trees and fruits, will be an urban utopia, presumably with green spaces and water features and endless beauty that would be eye-popping to the greatest urban planners in this world. It will be all the best and none of the worst of the cities we’ve known on a fallen earth. (Anyone who thinks they hate the idea of a city has only seen fallen cities.)
Outside the city will be nations. We know this because the kings of those nations will bring their treasures into the New Jerusalem, perhaps as worshipful tributes to King Jesus (Revelation 21:24). Anyone who thinks he hates the country because of isolation, boredom, and lack of activity hasn’t seen what awaits us on the New Earth, both outside cities and inside them.
The healing of the nations is linked to the leaves of the tree of life. Most likely that tree in the New Jerusalem is literal just as it was in Eden, just far more expansive, with perhaps miles or hundreds of miles of “trees” stemming from one root, making it a single tree of life. (The Pando aspen grove in the Fishlake National Forest in Utah is a quaking aspen with stems that appear to be separate trees but are not, spreading out over 106 acres and connected by a massive interwoven root system.) We are told that right now the [not a] tree of life is in the Present Heaven (Revelation 2:7) and in Revelation 21 that its leaves and great variety of fruits will enrich our existence there. Throughout history, leaves have been a primary source of medicines used in healing.
But since there will be no suffering, sickness, or death for anyone on the New Earth—people or animals—what is the meaning of the “healing” the leaves will bring? One possibility is that the leaves are for celebrating the final end of divisions between nations. In the ancient world, leaves and wreaths were symbols of peace. The olive branch represented peace in the Greco-Roman world. Even the Great Seal of the United States has an eagle symbolizing war, holding an olive branch in its claw, with olives and leaves, symbolizing peace. Those seeking peace would hold an olive branch when approaching a high ranking official. Laurel wreathes not only crowned victorious commanders and athletes but also became symbols of peace celebrating the end of competition and the beginning of festivities. So the leaves of healing may represent that all earth’s inhabitants are perpetually healthy at last, nations are no longer divided, hate is over, and war is forever behind us.
Since on the New Earth war will only be a memory, surely the tree of life’s leaves won’t be necessary to heal us from such wounds. Diseases will be no more. However, while we can’t know for certain the exact nature of the resurrection body, it seems possible that in our everyday lives, or perhaps in particularly adventuresome activities, we will always be finite creatures even while living eternally. If so, could we—and the animals under our care—incur minor injuries (never fatal and without great pain), that the leaves could quickly heal?
Pain is not synonymous with evil, the curse, and the fall. What happened with the curse was the increase of pain and then the beginning of unrelenting pain leading to death. It's not that Adam and Eve didn't have nerves that didn't allow them to feel any pain.
While Ezekiel and Revelation are certainly talking about people in terms of the healing of the nations, as go people, so go the animals. So it could very well mean that animals could experience just the small amount of pain necessary to deter their actions—to pull a paw out of a fire, for instance. And then the leaves of the tree of life could also be used for their healing. This of course is speculation, but I'm just trying to make best sense of the text.
Pain can be beneficial when it’s only temporary and fleeting, prompting us to pull back our hand from a hot surface before damage is done or any ongoing suffering begins. This is the protective nature of pain that could theoretically still be part of our resurrection bodies.
Pain can prompt a reflective reaction in the body that protects it from harm that would involve actual suffering, which would be severe and ongoing—and we’re told will no longer exist. Our bodies can react reflexively to danger before we fully register pain consciously.
In a perfect Eden, with perfect but finite bodies, could Adam and Eve have tripped and fallen, or had a cut that bled? Could they have then tended and helped each other? Could the leaves of that amazing garden of Eden have had properties that helped administer healing? If so, could this be what it’s talking about concerning leaves of healing on the New Earth?
Perhaps the tree’s fruit and leaves will be one way God continuously infuses and sustains His resurrected people with life and health. God doesn’t have to make us once and for all invulnerable like comic book superheroes. He could instead give us a continuous and everlasting infusion of secondary means to maintain our health and well-being.
I am speculating, attempting to make sense of the leaves of the tree of life being for our healing on the New Earth when we already have our resurrection bodies, and death and suffering are no more. Some translations read “no more pain,” but that doesn’t need to mean “no more ability to feel” or “no more nerve endings or sensations,” just no more suffering. We don’t have to know the answers now, but one day we will!
I think part of retaining our humanity will involve still feeling sensations and responding to stimuli. I would expect the same of the New Earth and the animal kingdom. An inability to feel would reduce us to robots, while continuous empowerment and infusion of healthy foods and preventive treatments, such as the healing leaves of the tree of life, could help us maintain our full humanity.
God can do it however He wishes. Jesus sometimes healed people without any secondary means, simply by saying “be healed,” other times touching them, and in one case mixing his spit with mud, having the man put it on his eyes, then wash himself off in a river. The point is not how He will do it but that He will do it. And since the fruit of the tree of life will presumably be available to animals also, it may play a part in their ongoing perfect health.
God says of His people, “Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst” (Revelation 7:16). This doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t require food and drink, but possibly that we will always have all the food and drink we want and need. The leaves, which have always been associated with healing in this world, will remind us of the profound personal and global healing sustained by God’s ongoing provision. If that is so, then the leaves do not have to cause the healing of present sickness but can forever remind us of God’s miraculous healing of the New Earth and all its inhabitants.
To be forever strong, our resurrection bodies may be sustained forever by unending access to nourishing foods and preventive medicines from consuming leaves that will have health-giving properties. This could be just as true of animals as people. In any case, the bottom line is the same, and Revelation 21:4 says it all: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
